it all started innocently enough. hey we should replace this crown right away. ok let’s do this other little filling while we’re at it. whoops your mouth is too small to fit our ginormo nasa probe camera thing all the way in the back. ok let’s do impressions – it’ll take longer but you’ll still be out of here in an hour. whoops that crown came out wrong we have to do it again. hmm still doesn’t fit. guess we need to take new impressions. wait another hour.

in all i spent five hours on my back with my mouth stretched open and no less than three hands inside. most of the time i was stared at the ceiling and contemplated the odd placement of the fire sprinkler. for the last hour or two i finally understood the detached desperate claustrophobia that must be felt by alien abduction victims or, less dramatically, the majority of people when at the dentist.

now my jaw is killing me, i have a headache and i feel guilty for missing work this morning, even though it wasn’t really my fault that my promised hour and a half, tops, turned into being held hostage for five. i feel like i should do something nice for myself now as a reward for being a good patient, but i can’t think of anything that doesn’t involve money in some form or another and i just spent all of mine on my teeth.

update: you can get me this adorable limited edition polar bear print if you’d like to lift my spirits.

update 2: my jaw-holder-opener muscles are so tired i can no longer open my mouth wide enough to insert food, at least not without a concerted effort. this is going to be a problem. i guess i’m puréeing that thai food for dinner?

* i will say though, that the dentist herself was fantastic and empire dental is definitely the most high-tech office i’ve ever patronized. the visit took so long because the dentist didn’t want to leave me with sub-par work, which i appreciate.